Vegas or Bust

I once saw a bumper sticker that said ‘Vegas or Bust’ well I was just in Vegas and it was a bust for sure. I have to say that city is a very dark place in many ways we all know its called sin city but I had no idea how much so. It needs a move of God in the worst way. I sure felt for the church there as their task is huge. What broke my heart the most was the sense of false hope that was so strong there. Promises that can never truly be realized by the people that visit or who live there. As you walk down the strip you are met by people trying to hand you porn and I must say it was very annoying and we definitely were not happy with them and unfortunately showed it. Then it dawned on me that they were just trying to feed their family trying to make ends meet - to survive. It was probably the only way they could make some money. My heart goes out to them being forced into exploiting young girls the age of some of their own daughters. It must torment their souls to be out day after day being treated horrible and feeling horrible for what they were doing.

My point here is this… sometimes it is easy for us to judge someone for what we see them do in the natural without understanding what put them into the situation in the first place. I at one time in my life was homeless and on drugs and stole to feed my habit and stomach. It would be easy to judge me and I may have deserved it but the whole time I was in that period of my life I dreamed of helping others. Always even then I would share what I had with others. If the church in North America is going to touch our communities with God’s love we must change our view of it. We must seek to understand people and where they are at…not judge them for it! We must move with empathy putting ourselves in their shoes. Jesus did that for us He came and walked a mile in our shoes and then paid for it with His life!

Our faith must be love centered not rules centered. We, as followers of Jesus, must see what He sees rather then what the world sees. I have found that how one is viewed is how they are treated and eventually the person develops a belief system around that view about himself and others. This is especially true of kids: There was a time when a ministry partner was asked to come to a school to talk to a student. This student was considered the bully in the school everyone including the staff saw him in this light. He may have earned it but it did not represent his heart at all. As they talked my friend said to him, “I see in you a gift of compassion!” The kid laughed out loud and asked if he knew who he was. He assured him he did know and that he saw in him a gift…to make a long story short because I don’t have space here, he was eventually able to see it too and his bullying turned into leadership and he turned out to be a top student who helped other kids. He simply had someone help him change the window he looked through. We must at times look through a different window then the obvious one. Look into the heart of someone rather then the actions and then begin to say what we see!!

Let’s LOVE BIG, people! LOVE BIG!

Mark is enthusiastic about helping people learn to speak and live out strength-based principles. Mark is also enthusiastic about banana splits!